The House as Museum, The Museum as House: The Making of Great Collections. International conference

06.03.2018 from 10:00 to 18:00

Conference Hall

To prepare for the opening of the Cerruti Collection to the public in early 2019, Castello di Rivoli will be holding an important one-day international conference on 6 March entitled The House as Museum, The Museum as House: The Making of Great Collections with some of the leading experts in the field. The aim is to stimulate reflection on the importance of reciprocity between museums and private collections in connection with the extraordinary acquisition of the legendary Cerruti Collection – one of the most important private collections in Europe – by the Castello di Rivoli.

Except for the large blockbuster museums in major urban centers, most art museums we know today were originally founded by collectors and art lovers who decided themselves, or whose heirs decided, to share their collections with the public. Either with an educational mission of civic society building or in order to create a legacy through which their memory might be preserved by future generations, these museums are active around the world today. Some of them were founded by artists and other intellectuals, whose estates have thus become public. The modern “white cube” detached this domestic and private origin from a sense of the autonomy of the artwork. While today new museums appear all over the world, artists and visitors seek out the personality and domesticity of the exhibition spaces, as a way of grounding their experiences in life.

During this conference, the directors and representatives of illustrious Italian and international institutions − comprising the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Judd Foundation in Marfa and New York, Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, the Villa Borghese in Rome, the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, the Villa e Collezione Panza in Varese and the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli in Turin − will discuss the growing importance of dialog between private collections and museums and its impact on the fundamental relationship between contemporary art and the legacy of the past. The participants will talk about their experiences and the close and positive relations between museums and private collections born out of the drive for knowledge peculiar to art.

The conference is the fruit of the important agreement signed in 2017 with the Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte, whereby Italy’s leading museum of contemporary art holds responsibility for the conservation, study, promotion and management of the extraordinary collection built up by the entrepreneur, industrialist and collector of rare sensitivity Francesco Federico Cerruti, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 93. Once renovated, the villa built by Cerruti to house his works in Rivoli, close to the Castello, will present this artistic heritage to the public in 2019.

Between the 1950s and his death in 2015, Francesco Federico Cerruti built up a collection of approximately three hundred paintings and sculptures, ranging from medieval times to the present, as well as nearly two hundred rare and ancient books with bindings and gilded illustrations, and over three hundred items of furnishing, including carpets and desks by renowned cabinetmakers. Revealing an extraordinary development of artistic acumen, this priceless private collection includes works by Segno di Bonaventura, Bernardo Daddi, Pontormo, Ribera, Zurbarán, Renoir, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Giacometti, Picasso, Klee, Severini, Boccioni, Balla and Magritte all the way up to Bacon, Burri, Fontana, Warhol, De Dominicis and Paolini.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the Castello di Rivoli, is firmly convinced that the Collection Cerruti “will become a driving force of creativity for the museum to create a unique dialog between the past and contemporary art.”

Holders of tickets to the museum will be admitted to the conference free of charge on a first come, first served basis.

The historic stately rooms on the first floor of the museum house the exhibition Giorgio de Chirico. Major Works from the Collection of Francesco Federico Cerruti, drafted by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marcella Beccaria, while the Manica Lunga presents Metamorphoses – Let Everything Happen to You, a group exhibition of works by emerging artists drafted by Chus Martínez.

 

Rivoli Express Shuttle

The Rivoli Express shuttle service will operate for the conference with the following timetable:

9.15 – Piazza Carlina (corner of Via Maria Vittoria)

9.25 – Piazza XVIII Dicembre (direction Corso San Martino)

18.00 – Departure from the Castello di Rivoli for Turin

Passengers will be admitted free of charge until capacity is reached.